


even my phone misses your call

by softnoirr



Series: my true love and I find a way (soon or never) [2]
Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Developing Relationship, F/F, but I am not the boss of you do as you like, you could read this without reading soon or never it would just make very minimal sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:15:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29879610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softnoirr/pseuds/softnoirr
Summary: From Christen:Leaving now.6:54pmFrom Tobin:drive safe6:56pmOr: Christen's allowed to use her phone again. Some things are better left untouched.
Relationships: Tobin Heath/Christen Press
Series: my true love and I find a way (soon or never) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2196819
Comments: 15
Kudos: 87





	even my phone misses your call

**Author's Note:**

> set somewhere between the end of chapter three and the beginning of chapter four of soon or never. or wherever you like to imagine it to be, idk, as I said, I'm not the boss of you.
> 
> i know literally everyone that wanted a sequel specifically requested to see the notes in the angry jar scene (which i still intend to write eventually) but this is what I wanted, so here ya go.

Being told she can use her phone again is as bitter as it is sweet. A part of Christen - the strong, dangerous part - is excited by it. It feels, almost, as if she can dial a number and find the answers to every question that rattles about her damaged brain on the other end of the call. Find in the message tone the key that could undo all the clockwork of her locked up memory. 

The logical part sees it as just another taunting almost. Yet another thing to hold but never to have. Another blunt object her hands would wrap around, could flex into and over, without a single chance of finding anything within. 

There was nothing to be found. That was what she had realised. It didn’t matter, this endless search. It didn’t change a thing. It was empty space she was staring down, Tobin at her back hoping to push her into it, hoping she’d claw her way back out with all the answers of emptiness.

But Tobin was too kind to shove, and Christen was too cowardly to jump, and so, when the doctor cleared her to use technology with the flick of a pen across thin sheets of printer warm paper, she simply collected her phone from a drawer in Tobin’s -  _ their _ \- kitchen and slotted it into her back pocket. 

This was the ultimate stalemate. The sword in the stone with all the heroes dead and gone. No one was coming to save her. Who would? Even if they hadn’t all died in the wreck - could she really presume to be worth saving?

Tobin might say that she was, but that was love speaking. Love wasn’t trustworthy when it came to the hero's journey. 

It would be easier to play the villain, but Christen is all out of speeches to give if she ever had any in her all. It's just another thing to be unsure about, and another thing to slip into her back pocket or hide under the bed that doesn’t feel like hers but doesn’t feel like anyone else's either. 

Her life is not a fairytale, but that was already clear. Fairytales didn’t take everything from you with an overgrown nature strip and a second-hand car in need of an oil change. Fairytales let you know what it was you were losing. 

Christen can’t imagine that there's much on her phone, one she doesn’t recognise and has no memory of ever using, that could reveal more loss than she’s already seen through her own two eyes. She leaves it in her pocket and settles for the part of herself that knows best; that hopeless wandering woman. 

**

“Anything interesting in it?” Tobin asks, her voice playful and light and completely see-through as she nods at the phone on the coffee table in front of them. Christen could hear the  _ ‘anything to remember me by’  _ from a mile away. Fitting, given that she feels just about that far from Tobin at all times. 

“I haven’t really looked.” Christen shrugs, pushing her peas and corn into a neat pile in the center of her plate, the rest of her meal finished off around them. She uses the rounded side of her fork to herd them into a shaky replication of a circle.

Tobin sets her own knife and fork down with a clang that makes them both wince. Her plate sways on the edges of her knees, and Christen can’t help but worry about the carpet of the living room where they’re eating. Can’t help but wonder if the speckled stains and scuffs already stamped into the ground can be blamed for this habit.

It would be wiser to eat at the rounded dining table, or at the kitchen bench, but there was a documentary about whales on TV, and Tobin had worn a wounded look when Christen had gone to sit at the table, standing in the doorway, one foot in and one foot out, swaying heavily towards the TV set. She’d looked for all the world like she might well pick the whales over Christen. The closest she’d come to anything but steady and, well, it wasn’t even really Christen’s carpet. What did she care?

(She cares a lot, and she doesn’t know why, which is the root of any and all problem she finds herself with) 

Tobin swallows, her jaw moving strangely as she pokes around her teeth with her tongue. “Can I ask why, or is it, like, a secret?”

“That's a very boring secret to have,” Christen says, lips curling just slightly. Most of the time she just feels alien from Tobin. Some of it, she just wants to curl up in her lap and let her make it all okay again. 

Whatever _'again’_ constitutes. 

“Sorry. Should I spice it up? Maybe I’ll start hiding things from you to keep the marriage fresh.” Tobin grins. Her eyes are a bit too sunken, and her skin a little too oily, for it to feel like genuine joy, but it makes Christen laugh anyway.

“Is this,” Christen gestures to her head with a dramatic wave, “not enough spice for your standards?”

Tobin’s smile widens, but the edges of it turn more bitter than sweet. “I think it’s like if you ask for seasoning, and then the one you get is the one spice in the world you’re allergic to.”

One of Christen’s peas rolls away from the center, sliding through a line of gravy before getting stuck on what remains of her mashed potatoes. Christen pierces it on the end of her fork, careful not to disturb the balance of the rest of them, and chews it with more care than is strictly needed. 

“So you’re saying I’m an acquired taste?” 

Tobin snorts and Christen smiles at the sound. 

“Something like that,” Tobin says, easily. The weight that lifts off of Christen’s chest at the dismissal of the mood doesn’t feel easy. Nothing feels easy. Tobin just  _ is _ . “For the record, though, I think you should look at it. Not cause of, like, memory, but, you know, we’ve made some tech advancements in seven years, grandma, there might be some stuff to learn.”

Christen makes an offended noise and the smugness beneath Tobin’s smile only thickens. “You talk  _ so much _ shit.” 

“Uh-huh,” Tobin nods, “Cause I’m funny.”

“You aren’t.” 

“Hey, check the phone, you might think differently. My text game is fire, babe.” 

“You’re attempting to manipulate me, Tobin, and I see right through it,” Christen says, firmly. She tries to ignore the itch in her fingers to search every single message in the phone just to extract evidence that Tobin’s texting game is, in fact, not fire, and honestly, probably isn’t even lukewarm. Christen would bet money that it's as cold as stone.

She can’t prove that, obviously, because if she looks through the phone she  _ loses _ , but if she doesn’t, she also has to lose  _ this _ argument.

Christen isn’t competitive, she just likes to win. 

Tobin laughs, carding a hand through her hair and settling her plate onto the coffee table in front of them. She lets her eyes rest on the TV for a moment, where a whale is battling its way through a school of colourful fish with an agitated look. Christen doesn’t think it should be possible for such a blank-faced creature to be so obviously annoyed, but the evidence is right there in front of them.

When Tobin looks back at her, though, her eyes are somber. “You know that I like, love you. Capital letter. Whatever you find in there, whatever you don’t, it's not gonna change that.”

Christen isn’t sure that she does  _ know _ that she loves her, but:

Christen trusts her, Christen feels her beneath her fingertips, flesh and blood and truth. She’s a beating whole in fractured pieces. Once, she had been one person, held together by the string that ties them to each other, that melts Christen’s skin into hers and mingles their feelings into shared body wash. 

That’s gone now. 

It's splattered like brake light glass on the highway where Christen came apart. Christen is a ghost haunting the halls of a life she died too early to know, but Tobin is the haunted house that’ll never be exorcised of this spirit. Tobin is gone, she left with Christen. 

“Which letter?”

“Huh?”

“Which letter is the one you’re capitalising on?” Christen asks and decidedly doesn’t focus on any hoarseness in her voice, “Are you capitalising ‘love,’ or ‘you,’ or even ‘I,’ because the sentiment is drastically changed by which one it is. Except for ‘I,’ which is always capitalised if we’re employing correct grammar here.” 

Tobin frowns at her. “It's impossible to have a moment with you, did you know that?”

“I don’t know, I can’t remember whether or not that’s true.” 

Tobin tosses one of the couch pillows at her so gently it barely brushes her skin. It catches all of her plate and sends the pile of peas and her cutlery splattering to the ground. Tobin only pretends to look sorry for a total of two seconds before she bursts out laughing. 

**

Christen caves, of course, because ultimately, it was satisfaction that had brought back that foolish cat. Christen isn’t sure that there is any resurrection in this, but she’s already down to eight lives, she might as well test the theory and engage her curiosity while she’s at it. 

She holds out a full two weeks. Two weeks of distracting herself by overseeing Tobin clean vegetables out of the carpet, of doctors check-ups and staring at the walls, the roof, the halls, of wondering exactly how fire Tobin’s texting game is, and exactly how much of her old life can be boiled down into a blue screen.

The latter is decidedly more important than the former. 

When Tobin disappears for an afternoon to run errands, only after chewing on her lip in the front of the house, fiddling with the zipper of her jacket, and asking Christen if she’s sure she’s okay to be left alone no less than 50 times, Christen pulls the phone of the faulty old charger she’d dug out of the bedside table and powers it up.

There’s a crack creeping over one side, like spiderwebs weaving their way over the shiny surface. Christen isn’t sure if it's from the crash or from some time before, but she’s never been one to be careless with her things.

The background is basic, a pre-set sunrise, and Christen thanks herself for the small mercy of her dedication to privacy and boredom. The messages app is a different story, stuffed full of names she doesn’t know and only a patchwork of contact photos to help, spilling out at the seams like an overfilled wallet. 

Christen clicks onto her text thread with Tobin, the contact photo too small to really see in detail but filled with enough white she’s fairly sure it's from a -  _ their _ \- wedding, and scrolls up for a few moments before settling in a random place. 

She breathes in deeply and settles in to read through the mess of the last weeks of her life. 

  
  


Tobin: 

kettles broken. again 

8:17am 

Christen:

Ughhhhhh

8:23am

* * *

Tobin:

do you have my jacket???

12:04pm

Christen:

Wore it to work! 

2:12pm

Tobin:

kay

2:13pm

* * *

Tobin: 

still want me at work drinks?

4:01pm

Christen:

Always.

4:09pm

* * *

Christen: 

Today's daily words of wisdom: I will use justice as my sword and wisdom as my shield, through which we will battle not against but for the world 

7:58am

Tobin: 

you’re my shield

9:15am

* * *

  
  


Christen: 

Dinner with A + A?

2:28pm

  
Tobin:

was hoping for some c + t time 

2:29pm

Christen:

Subtle. 

2:35pm

Tobin:

Lol

2:36pm

* * *

  
  


Christen: 

Do you remember the name of the song that goes ‘you make me crazier, crazier, crazier’ but its quite airy sounding? 

11:23pm

Tobin:

gonna guess it's called crazier 

11:27pm

Christen:

Funny. 

11:29pm

Tobin: 

what was it? also why??

11:31pm

Tobin: 

it was crazier wasn’t it 

11:32pm

Read: 11:34pm 

* * *

Tobin: 

you still mad or can i send you a funny pic?

4:37pm 

Christen: 

Try an apology first. 

4:39pm

* * *

Christen:

I’m gonna be late. Can you feed morena, please? Xx

5:23pm

Tobin:

all g

5:28pm

Tobin:

you good? 

5:34pm

Christen:

Fine, but I’ll want wine when I get home.

5:42pm

Tobin:

Hahaha

5:43pm

Christen

Leaving now. 

6:54pm

Tobin:

drive safe 

6:56pm

Tobin:

?

7:41pm

Tobin:

don’t answer if you’re driving but lmk where you @ 

7:50pm

Tobin: 

if you went to the grocery store I need toothpaste haha 

8:01pm 

Christen lets the screen shutter black on the tiny ‘delivered’ signal beneath the message. And that was all that she had written. That was all that was left of Christen’s life. A blue bubble and the affection with no place left to go. 

What is clear, what she can’t deny is that she had loved Tobin. Whoever this phantom Christen whose place she has taken is, a part of her still lingers because a part of her is in Tobin. A part of this woman is in every room of the house, every crevice, stored in the top cabinet or with loose change under the couch, or wherever it was they kept love for later. 

And Tobin had loved her. Tobin had lost her, because this person lingers, but Christen can’t just be her, can’t just take the things she had held dear, even if those things are reaching out towards her and begging to be gripped onto. 

Christen puts the phone back into the kitchen drawer. If Tobin knows, she doesn’t ask. 

It's just another thing she doesn’t know what to do with.

**Author's Note:**

> comments are most beloved and appreciated xx  
> you can find me on tumblr [here](https://softnoirr.tumblr.com/)


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